


Phasing

by SirKai



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen, Psychological Drama, Science Experiments, Science Husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 06:25:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirKai/pseuds/SirKai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ratchet works tirelessly on perfecting the synthetic energon compound, while haunted by the memories of a partnership from a pre-war Cyberton.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phasing

“So is this what you do all day, Doc? Just fiddle with your instruments and pointy objects?”

“I am not _fiddling_ with anything, Wheeljack.” Ratchet gave him an accusing glance from over his shoulder. “I am trying to complete a formula that could save our lives. We can’t rely on this planet’s finite amount of energon deposits forever.”

Wheeljack curiously picked up a canister of translucent green fluid from the nearby vial rack. “So, this some sort of bot-made energon?”

“Almost. The formula we obtained was, unfortunately, incomplete. The unknown portions could be any number of variables, and it will probably take months of testing to discover them. I am slowly trying to eliminate as many of the variables as possible, to help synthesize an energon identical to the organic compound. Some of this is accomplished by my attempt to reverse engineer the organic energon. It’s important to utilize as little as possible in the tests, while still yielding results properly proportional to the same reactions on a larger scale.”

Wheeljack tossed the filled cylinder into the air a few times, testing its weight, and peered through the hazy green liquid. “Sounds complicated.”

“If there was any _simple_ solution, then all of this testing wouldn’t be necessary.”

The wrecker shot a bored frown at Ratchet’s back. He watched the doctor squint into the eyepiece of his microscope, ever so slightly adjusting the focusing knob on the side. “Hmm.” Wheeljack flashed his eyes back down at the vial in his hand with a sly half-grin. “Say, if it’s synthetic, can’t you, y’know, tweak it?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow at the autobot doctor. “Enhance it or somethin’? Make it better than the normal stuff?”

“Well... yes it...” Ratchet shifted his optics and made a shrill, guttural noise. “It is a possibility, but such a concept would demand its own brand of testing. An enhanced energon is simply far too unpredictable and... potentially dangerous, to pursue right now. Especially with our limited resources.”

“That’s a shame. Imagine the kick that could give even one of us against the cons.”

Ratchet’s hands paused, his vision drifting towards the floor for a moment. “Yes... it is a shame. But right now securing a stable source of sustainable first aid supplies is what’s most important.”

“And to do that, you need to experiment so you can... keep experimenting?” Wheeljack asked. He eyed at the medic’s distorted coloring and proportions through the vial, watching him carefully measure a blue energon sample in his syringe.

“That is the short of it, yes,” Ratchet said without looking up. “It’s imperative that I use as few resources as possible to perfect the synthetic compound, but whatever I discover will be useless if I can’t apply it when we start producing whole cannisters.”

The wrecker sat the vial on top of a nearby monitor. “Riiight,” Wheeljack’s voice trailed off as he started towards the hanger passageway. “I’m gonna go watch the hull sealant dry on the Jackhammer. You have fun, Sunshine.”

Ratchet carefully dripped a tiny amount of the blue energon from his syringe onto the small transparent microscope slide. “Mhm,” he hummed, barely acknowledging his ally was leaving the room.

Wheeljack’s footsteps were barely audible echoes by the time Ratchet pried his hands from his research countertop and sidled to the nearby terminal to log the latest results and variables. He snatched the misplaced vial of synthetic energon and grimaced at it before sliding back into the empty slot of the vial rack.

But at least there’s finally some peace and quiet, Ratchet thought.

He shifted back to the terminal, hands hovering just above the key interface. Though the medic had been documenting his own laboratory records for millions of years, he sighed, groaned, and cursed anytime he had to distract himself from his work to do it.

Optics dimming slightly, Ratchet lazily inspected his hands resting on the keyboard. He outstretched his worn, dark fingers. Thousands of chips and nicks in his plating marred the reflective sheen. He didn’t have hands cut out for monotonous paraphrasing.

But he’d known someone who did. Someone who Ratchet only tried to acknowledge in memories so distant they may as well have been pure fantasy.

It was someone who made simple transcribing look like an art. Almost like a performance; one he first saw millions of years ago. The doctor even recalled the way the dimness of the workshop framed the atmosphere like an act of theatre.

Ratchet’s vision had lingered over his colleague’s long, thin fingers as they tapped away tirelessly at the key interface. They stopped. The medic’s optics widened at the holographic monitor.

Soundwave was logging each and every syllable.

“Oh, uh...”

Soundwave’s fingers typed at the interface for another astro-second.

_Oh uh..._

“I just... this chemical reaction. It’s significantly more efficient.”

More quick taps against the interface.

_I just... this chemical reaction. It’s significantly more efficient._

Ratchet paused again. His lab partner slowly rotated his visor away from the monitor to face him. He suspected it was hiding an expectant look.

“It’s just.. I’ve managed to distill the radiation output from three-point-six percent to two-point-seven.”

Soundwave turned back towards the monitor and resumed transcribing the doctor’s speech. Ratchet’s eyes continued to bound back and forth between the typing fingers and the impeccable dialog being documented on screen.

_It’s just.. I’ve managed to distill the radiation output from three-point-six percent to two-point-seven._

But this wasn’t the dramatically lit workshop on Cybertron; only his crude and uncomfortable autobot base. Ratchet gave himself a meager smile, and scoffed at the recollection as he sat one of the ingredient compounds on the boiling plate.

He decided to withhold the laboratory reports for later.

Soundwave had always been about efficiency and productivity. Watching the cloud of vapor emanate from the heated solution, Ratchet pondered if the decepticon hadn’t been responsible for bolstering those qualities in himself. Soundwave had always been very hands on. Even pushy at times. But Ratchet found his unapologetic work ethic was effective and admiral.

He remembered that it only took one example to convince him. It was a repair job. Ratchet had been slowly tuning the dial on his frame welder, his metallic digits pinching the knob with groaning pressure.

A sneaking, tentacle-like appendage slithered between his hands and snatched the tool away with its clawed end. “Wha- Soundwave!” The doctor swung out with his hand in futility to grab the welder before it was left dangling near the workshop ceiling. “ I _needed_ that!” Ratchet exclaimed with a childish stomp. “I was about to weld-”

Soundwave marched towards the medic and gripped the two halves of the chestplate from the workbench in his spidery fingers.

Ratchet angled his optics aggressively and bared his dental plates. He watched Soundwave stalk back towards the heated energon vat in the corner of the room. “Soundwave! What are you-”

There was a deafening sizzle and an explosion of steam as Soundwave dipped the pieces of the chestplate into the molten composite. The doctor squinted his optics, watching the warm cloud seep across the metallic floor. The sizzling dissipated with the smoke, and Soundwave stepped towards Ratchet out of the flowing steam, presenting a mended chestplate, adhered down the center with a thin line of white hot energon.

The doctor gazed blankly into the countertop, then panned his optics around his current, flimsy excuse for a ‘laboratory.’ Barely enough room to treat even a single patient, he thought. Barely enough room for even a single scientist, much less two. Ratchet found himself sighing again. With a proper resource of cybertronian supplies, with the greatest minds the planet could offer working in unison... such an elementary dilemma could be solved in a few short cycles, at most.

Yes, with the proper equipment and the brightest minds.

He finally logged the latest results, rinsed his microscope slides, lined up his flasks of crudely marked chemicals and compounds, and prepared the solutions. Ratchet stepped back and silently scrutinized the cramp station with arched eyebrows. The survival of the autobots might depend on his success, and this was all he could be afforded. On Cybertron, Soundwave would have offered his workshop. It was spacious and appropriately lit. There was no shortage of material or parts to tamper and test with.

Now, there was nowhere else. There was no one else.

Ratchet began the trials again. Mixing the hissing compounds, lightly applying drips of the solutions, analyzing the results under his microscope, then logging the conclusion. And he’d do it again. And again. Slightly modifying the variables, sometimes yielding an infinitesimal improvement, or at other times, a ruinous waste of energon. The doctor had been here before, stuck in a limbo of trial and error, until his lab partner might drop the solution into his lap.

Or rather, dropped it onto the workbench. It bounced and rasped, then rolled into view. Ratchet plucked the large bullet from the scarred tabletop and glared at its flat, luminous blue end. His optics widened.

“Of course, concussive rounds! The shells are hollow, and firing them is more forgiving for the weapon frame.” Ratchet pointed at the holographic blueprints hovering above the workshop table. His index finger followed the length of an x-ray image of a bulky robotic arm. “We can include feeding belts on the inside walls of the appendage. If we use these, he should be able to maintain full arm flexibility at all times. However, I don’t think a simple modification would be feasible, Soundwave. We’ll have to build him an entirely new right arm.” The doctor turned towards to his lab partner’s reflective visor. Ratchet was effectively staring at himself. “I presume Megatronus would be alright with this?”

Soundwave nodded.

“Hah!” Ratchet gave his partner a proud smile. “He’s going to be the finest gladiator in Cybertron’s history!”

The words reverberated in his head, like they had traveled millions of years ago from their point of origin merely to haunt him now. The curved panels over his shoulders slouched, and hands dropped limply below the edge of the countertop.

_The finest gladiator in Cybertron’s history._

Yes, Ratchet thought. He was.

The medic’s vision lazily swept over the cluttered work table. His hands reached for beakers. His fingers gripped instruments. He carried on the tasks blankly, like his limbs were operating on their own.

Ratchet applied the solutions, yet again, on the sterile microscope slide. The newly formed green compound sizzled and exhaled its vapor.

Droning. Repetitive. Positively soporific.

Just keep trying. Trying until the same chemical reaction is replicated on the smallest scale possible. A perpetual scientific limbo. Not like engineering, constructing, and discovering.

He and Soundwave had soldered the panels and plates together along the outside of Megatronus’ new arm, concealing the bolts and acutely measured ammo tracks. Engineering and building prosthetic limbs was of course nothing new for Ratchet, but he had never built a weapon before. It turned out to be an eerily familiar process.

The smoke cleared as the scientists stepped back to admire their work. A fully fortified, weapon-mounted cybertronian appendage. “Incredible,” the doctor mumbled. He passed a wide grin from the weapon to his lab partner. “Soundwave, we have to test the cannon. Here,” Ratchet offered one end of a utility cable to Soundwave, and snapped the other end into the open socket of the limb. He then flipped open a panel on the forearm and installed a single round of ammunition.

“Alright, the concussive shell should only scar the wall. Ready when you are Soundwave.” Ratchet stood back from the weapon and glanced at his partner.

Soundwave had taken several steps away from the holographic console, and guided Ratchet to it with an open hand.

“Me!?” Ratchet’s optics narrowed at Soundwave.

His partner nodded at him.

“What? But-” The doctor caught his own stupefied expression in his partner’s visor. He corrected it, arching his brow determinedly. “Alright, if you’re sure,” the doctor said lowly. He eased near the console and tapped in several quick lines of code, followed by the muffled whirring of the arm’s reloading mechanism. After a moment of silence, Ratchet stood with his index finger hovering over the command key. “Here goes nothing.”

He pressed the button with a metallic digit, then withdrew his hands from the interface to shield his face from the blinding blast. The appendage jolted atop the table, emitting an almost receptor-scarring roar that compounded within the walls of the workshop.

As the piercing cannon shot receded, the medic slowly peeked over his fingers, optics darting between the smoking arm-mounted cannon in front of him, and the cracked, scorched ring in the nearby wall.

“Soundwave, I cannot wait to see what this prosthetic is capable of under Megatronus’ control.”

A slideshow of the arm’s _capabilities_ , its handiwork and victories, tore through Ratchet’s memory, each image more vivid and recent than the one before it, until he found himself standing in the hall of the autobot base, still staring hopelessly at his cluttered work station. He felt like he had just caught up on his own life.

Ratchet sighed, and resumed doing the only thing he could think to do. He delicately sat the latest slide onto his scale. His half-lidded optics bored into the digital display. The numerical values increased, increased, slowed, and then stopped. It was a lengthy number, fragmented by a decimal. The medic leaned in to squint at the display, like it had hurled a disgusting slur at him. He double checked the solutions administered, glanced back at the sample’s weight, looked at the solutions again, stared at the displayed weight some more, and rushed to the terminal.

The doctor dialed through his records, surfacing the values for producing an entire vial of synthetic energon. He typed in the results of the newest reaction, mentally comparing the proportions of the final product and exhausted waste.

“Unbelievable...” Ratchet muttered. He craned his head back from the terminal, still staring at the two statistics in gaping awe. “We did it. We did it!” The doctor spun around with a beaming expression, and reaching with an outstretched hand. “Soundwave! The reactions! They’re an exact ma-”

The medic’s expression froze. His optics danced around for a moment, as if to validate the setting; only the cracked, cement-grey walls and floors of the autobot base. Of... his home. His head reeled in towards the floor. Ratchet rotated back around towards the terminal, brow slouching and mouth slumping into a faint frown.

“Oh, yes. Of course...”

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to Katya, Kashi, Manic, and Starry-Dawn for their feedback! Plus massive appreciation to FiveTail for the extensive beta process, and major kudos to Veit for her insight that helped me finish this fic.


End file.
